Class (26 page)

One by one, the sage words of L. Ron Hubbard—“survival,” “engrams,” “audit,” “clear,” were singed and disintegrated as the book caught fire. Patrick placed the pot right next to the girl’s shoulder. The girl slept on, except she didn’t look like she was sleeping. She looked like a drowned person who’d been dredged out of the Gowanus Canal, just like on
Law & Order,
a TV show he’d watched in the truck stop in Lewiston where he hung out from time to time. The kitten mewed plaintively and pawed at the girl’s limp hand. It seemed less afraid of her than it was of him. Patrick put one hand on the floor and reached out over her body with the other hand to pet the kitten.

“Go on, crawl inside her coat or something,” he told it. “Warm her up.”

The kitten walked around the girl’s head and lay down on her hair, blinking its eyes in the firelight. Patrick sat back on his haunches. The hand that had been on the floor felt sticky. He examined his palm in the flickering light. It was matted with dark red stuff. Blood.

“Shit!”

The girl hadn’t moved since he’d dragged her inside. He poked at her fur. Was that the source of the blood? Had she skinned an animal and put on its coat? No, the coat had buttons. He unbuttoned them all and pulled aside the lapels. Only the shoulder straps of her white sundress were still white, the rest of it was covered with blood. She was bleeding to death.

He buttoned up the coat, grabbed the kitten off her hair, and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he shoved his hands beneath the girl’s back and thighs and did his best to lift her.

She was bigger than he was—tall. Her dark hair and big feet dragged on the ground as he staggered behind the dorms, skirting the fringes of Dexter’s campus, to the parking lot across the road from Coke. The sun was getting brighter now, but it was still early, and the campus was quiet. Stumbling, he dropped the girl in the deep, powdery snow and opened the back door of the Mercedes. Her head bumped against the door frame going in, but she didn’t even flinch.

The car sputtered to life. “Come on,” he growled as the wheels spun in the deep snow. He backed onto the road and floored the accelerator, headed toward the hospital just outside of town. Back behind the dorms, the fire burned bright inside the yurt, causing it to smoke like a volcano.

S
ea Bass was the only one with four-wheel drive and snow tires. “You’d think, coming to college in Maine, people would have more sense,” he scoffed. Nick, Eliza, and Geoff were huddled in the back of his 4Runner. Everyone else was stuck at Adam’s house, trying to dig their cars out with the two shovels they’d found in the barn.

“I’ve got chains,” Damascus announced defensively from the passenger seat. “On my car at home.”

“It’s not about the tires,” Geoff spoke up, his bony hands folded placidly in his lap as he gazed out the window. None the worse for wear after staying up all night and huffing an entire bottle of ether, Geoff couldn’t wait to lace up his Nikes and head out for a run. “It’s like running shoes. What matters is the distribution of weight.”

Eliza was holding Nick’s red, welted hand. They’d fallen asleep on top of each other in the hay. Now Nick’s entire body was covered in an angry rash and his eyes were almost swollen shut.

“I think I need to go to the Health Center,” he complained. “Get some cortisone.”

“I think I need to sleep in a bed,” Eliza muttered. She turned to examine Nick’s profile. She expected him to look older, more manly, after last night. But his beard was just peach fuzz, not even worth shaving. “Sorry to be a buzz kill, but we have exams tomorrow,” she reminded everyone.

“Fuck,” Sea Bass moaned. “I’m so fucking screwed.”

Nick wiped his nose on the cuff of his shirt. “Maybe I can get the nurse to write me a note.” He looked down at his other hand, tucked inside Eliza’s. He hadn’t expected her to be the hand-holding type—more the whips and leashes type—but she was almost affectionate. He imagined her introducing him to one of her friends back home. “This is my boyfriend, Nick.” He supposed that would be all right.

“Hey,” he murmured into her ear. “Do you think I could go home with you for Christmas?” After all, he had nowhere else to go.

“Hell yeah,” Eliza whispered back. She grabbed his swollen, drippy face and kissed him. This was what she’d always yearned
for—someone who wanted to be around, someone who was hers. “Better not bring your bong though.”

She imagined Nick smoking up right in the middle of the living room while her parents were out working in their real estate office over the garage.
Are you burning incense, princess?
they’d ask with their usual distracted cheerfulness.

“I was thinking of quitting anyway,” Nick said. Something about the snow and staying up most of the night in a dusty barn without getting high had made him game for contest. Or maybe it was Eliza who made him want to stay on his toes.

The 4Runner barreled up the hill toward campus. Dexter looked like it was trying very hard to look adorable so the students would remember to come back after Christmas. Golden rays of morning sun shone gloriously down on the dapper redbrick buildings nestled in nearly two feet of fresh, white snow. A giant snowman wearing a Dexter baseball cap stood jauntily in the center of the quad.

Sea Bass rolled down his window. “Nice!” he called out to a pair of girls on cross-country skis. The girls turned their heads and gave him a cheery wave. It was that kind of day.

“Holy shit,” Damascus cried, pointing. “What’s going on?”

Black smoke erupted from Root’s roof. The dorm appeared to be on fire.

“It’s not the dorm.” Geoff squinted out his window. “It’s a forest fire out back.”

Sea Bass put on his blinker and pulled into the driveway that led to the temporary parking lot on the other side of the quad, behind Root. Just beyond the parking lot, near the woods, was a gigantic bonfire. The flames were twenty feet high and dark orange. Sparks flew up into the air like firecrackers. The snow around the fire had already melted.

“It’s the yurt,” Nick said, feeling almost pleased with him
self. It served that loser right, living in there without his permission. “The yurt is burning down.”

“No way,” Eliza gasped. The whole damn thing was ablaze. She squeezed his hand protectively. “Holy shit.”

“Holy
fucking
shit,” Sea Bass exclaimed.

“It’s burning all the way the fuck
down,
” Damascus said, stating the obvious.

Everyone was quiet for a moment, transfixed by the flames. Then Geoff opened his door. “Hey, come on, you guys,” he said with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. “Let’s check it out.”

They staggered out into the snow. The fire was magnificent. And the authorities didn’t seem to have noticed it yet. Swaying a little from shock and lack of sleep, Nick raised his hand to shield his sore eyes from the smoke. Just beyond the fire rose the chapel spire, its blue light burning bright and blue and true as ever.

P
atrick pulled the car up in front of the emergency room. He flicked on the hazard lights and glanced into the backseat. The girl lay in a pile of bloody fur on the plush beige leather, her dark hair spilling onto the floor and her knees bent in a fetal position to accommodate her long legs.

He stepped out of the car, wondering if he should notify someone inside or if he should just carry her in. In movies they just carried them in.

There were a few old people in the waiting room, sleeping.

“She’s bleeding,” Patrick told the woman behind the desk. “She might already be dead,” he added, although he’d seen the girl’s nostrils flare and her brow furrow when he’d dragged her out of the car.

The receptionist stood up and peered at the girl in his arms. She picked up the phone. “I have a bleeder. Possible NGMI.
I need wheels!” she barked into it and then slammed the phone down. She pushed a clipboard across the counter. “You’ll need to sign in.”

Patrick just stood there, breathing hard. The girl was heavy in her fur coat. “What should I do?” he said. “Put her on the floor?”

The receptionist took back the clipboard. “Is she your wife?”

Patrick stared back at her for a moment. “No. I don’t even know—” He stopped, and then started again. “She’s my friend.”

“Name? Date of birth?”

“Who, me?” he stammered.

“No, her. What’s her name?” the receptionist said impatiently. “When was she born?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick admitted. “She’s young.”

The receptionist picked up the phone again. “Where the hell are my wheels?” She slammed the phone down. “You can both have a seat until they get here,” she told Patrick.

He staggered over to the nearest chair and sat down with the girl across his lap. Her face was purple and she smelled weird. She looked terrible. The weekend morning news played on the little television rigged in the corner near the ceiling. Just before the commercial, the camera flashed on the big Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. His dad used to take him to see that tree, just the two of them. Every Christmas break, from the time he was about eight until he left for Dexter, they’d ride in on the train, go to Brooks Brothers to buy him a new pair of pants and a jacket, and then they’d visit the tree. They’d just look at it without talking. Sometimes they drank hot chocolate. Then his dad would say, “Better get you back home,” and they’d walk back to Grand Central and he’d get on the train and ride back to Greenwich by himself.

A gurney arrived powered by two medics.

“Patient is female, name and age unknown! Trauma!” the receptionist shouted at them.

The medics helped Patrick lift the girl onto the gurney, smearing the white sheets with blood. “She’s that girl from my sister’s grade,” one of them noted as they wheeled her away.

“Should I come back later?” Patrick asked the receptionist. “To see if she’s okay?”

The receptionist didn’t even look up. “That’s not up to me.”

The glass doors slid open and two burly policemen arrived wearing dark blue police-issue parkas and guns in their holsters. They were accompanied by the old ex-cop who managed Dexter Security.

“That your car parked there?” the Dexter Security guy asked. He pronounced “there” like “they-ah.”

Patrick nodded. “Yeah.”

“You’re not a student up to the college, are ya?” the guy said.

Patrick shook his head. “Not anymore.”

“He just brought a girl in,” the receptionist spoke up. “She wasn’t doing too good.”

The policemen approached him from either side and clasped his arms. “That car’s stolen,” one of them said. “How ’bout you come with us.”

21

T
he dorms were alive again. Everyone had returned from the party, or from wherever they’d been the night before—their girlfriend’s dorm, skiing at Sugarloaf, a friend’s house in Boston. It wasn’t a noisy return, not with exams starting tomorrow. That bitter pill would have to be swallowed or chewed or crushed up and snorted, with no rush or high as a reward, just a blue book and two hours of tedious hell. Studying was advisable, and now was the very last chance to do it.

Shipley woke up with a start. Her hair was crusted to her cheek and she needed a shower. Someone was knocking on the door. Next to her Adam yawned and sat up too.

“Hi,” he said, grinning.

The knocking began again. “Security,” the knocker explained with a shout. “We found your car.”

“Just a minute!” Shipley gathered the duvet around her shoulders and approached the door. Three months ago she’d arrived at Dexter a virgin. Now here she was, opening the door and talking to Campus Security with only a duvet around her while a naked
guy lay sprawled on her bed. She opened the door and smiled pleasantly, like it was no big deal.

“You Miss Gilbert?” The security guy didn’t seem to notice that she wasn’t wearing any clothes. He didn’t seem to notice Adam either. He’d probably seen it all in his day.

Shipley nodded and he handed over her wallet. “Car’s parked in the lot across the way. You better go down to the police station when you get a chance. Guy stole the car is in jail. Claims he’s your—”

“I know who he is,” Shipley said curtly. “He didn’t leave a note, did he?”

The security guy frowned. “Not that I’m aware of.”

Behind them Adam cleared his throat. His red boxer shorts lay like a deflated balloon on the linoleum floor.

Shipley held out her hand. “May I have the keys, please?”

The man handed her the keys. “There’s lots going on this morning,” he said as he turned away. “You people was busy last night.”

Just then Eliza came barreling down the hall, her bangs all tangled and bits of hay stuck to her coat. The security officer stood aside to let her pass.

Shipley slammed the door closed in Eliza’s face and threw Adam his boxers. He scrambled into them while she put on her bathrobe.

“HELLO?!” Eliza burst in a moment later. “What the fuck did you do that for?” She took in the scene. Shipley’s jeans were all wadded up at the bottom of the bed. Her ironed underwear lay where it had been flung, halfway across the room. “Fucking A, Slutcakes, you move fast!” She kicked off her sneakers and thrust her feet inside a pair of red rubber rain boots. “Hey, you guys have to come outside and see this. Nick’s yurt is on fire. Come on, get dressed. I swear, it’s amazing.”

She waited outside for them while Shipley and Adam got back into yesterday’s clothes.

“I can’t believe I still haven’t had a shower,” Shipley said.

It was the only thing either of them said. Adam was embarrassed. Being alone with Shipley was one thing, but there was suddenly so much else going on—campus security, stolen cars, roommates, fires. It was a little overwhelming. And then there was the fact that he’d left his fifteen-year-old sister alone at the party. He had to get back.

Outside the air was clean and dirty at the same time. The snow was magnificent. It was everywhere. But the sky was filled with ash. At first it looked to Shipley as though Root’s roof was on fire. Tom’s in there, she thought guiltily. But as she drew closer, she could see that the fire was out back, beyond the dorm.